Some Kind of Love premieres at Palm Springs Film Festival

Who Knew CanCon had a special place in the heart of Palm Springs?

“The festival rivals Sundance in the sheer number of Canadian films on offer—there were nine this year, ranging from Denys Arcand’s La Règne de la Beauté, about an affair between a Québécois architect and a young Toronto woman, to Thomas Burstyn’s documentary Some Kind of Love, about two eccentric aging siblings.”

- Hadani Ditmats, Macleans Magazine

For the full article, please click here.

Dumphy havin’ a time on festival circuit, wins AFF fan favourite

Local film “How to be Deadly” has been named the winner of the 2014 Atlantic Film Festival’s Audience Award for Best Feature.

Directed by Nik Sexton, the film stars Leon Parsons as Donnie Dumphy — a YouTube sensation before the film was made — in a cast that also includes Susan Kent, Rick Mercer, Cathy Jones, Andy Jones, Mary Walsh, Gina Squires and Dan Bochart.

“How to be Deadly,” co-written by Sexton and Edward Riche, was filmed in St. John’s last summer. It beat out 80 other eligible films for the audience-voted award, and the film festival says it was a tight race between “How to be Deadly,” “Lure,” and “Relative Happiness,” a film directed by St. John’s filmmaker Deanne Foley.

“How to be Deadly” premiered at the Atlantic Film Fest and screened at the Calgary International Film Festival earlier this week.

Article by Tara Bradbury of The Telegram.

CIFF: East comes West as Newfoundland sensation Donnie Dumphy brings debut film to Calgary

At the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, it seems that Newfoundland expats like to bend the elbow when having a good time at a film festival.

Director Nik Sexton and actor/musician Leon Parsons, aka Donnie Dumphy, screened their debut film How to Be Deadly at the Atlantic Film Festival a week ago in a theatre that had a killjoy no-alcohol policy.

It didn’t make a difference.

“In Halifax, you could hear the clink, clink, clink,” said Sexton, outside the Globe Cinema Saturday night,  where How to Be Deadly screened as part of the Calgary International Film Festival. “They were just sneaking them in anyway.”

So Sexton and Parsons were delighted to learn that the Globe had a license to sell alcohol for screenings after 6 p.m., nicely liquor-lubricating the crowd and adding to the midnight-madness vibe of Saturday’s festivities.

Article by Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald.

To read the full article, please click here.

4 Star review for BIG MUDDY from Scene Creek!

TIFF 2014 Review: Big Muddy

Timeless, mysterious, and even dangerous are the Saskatchewan prairies, where Jefferson Monroe presents a beautifully cinematic and delightfully devilish tale of outlaw Canadiana.

It’s a tense and surprising mystery that unravels at its own tempered pace in Big Muddy, a piece of filmmaking that is simultaneously modern day and nostalgic, fictional and grounded, southern noir and western cavalier. There is a criminal on the run, a manipulative, saucy vamp with a past, and some imposing cowboys who hang out at the racetracks. Some of them have cool hats and dresses, and of all them have guns. (read more)

NOW Toronto gives Big Muddy 4 Stars!

Review By: NORMAN WILNER
NOW Rating: NNNN

Pursued by an old associate, a Saskatchewan grifter (Litz) flees with her teenage son (Kelly) to her childhood home to hunker down for a final confrontation with her enemies. It’s set in the present day, but it doesn’t have to be.

Except for the presence of the occasional cellphone, Big Muddy plays out like a pulp novel, with a good-sized cast of characters on collision courses due to decisions they made years or decades earlier.

It works surprisingly well within its modest parameters. Litz anchors a strong cast (including Stephen McHattie, Rossif Sutherland, David La Haye and a nicely chilly James Le Gros), and Moneo creates moments of strange grace that contrast sharply with all the bloody vengeance.

Click here to see the full article.